Laundry room location in the home

ccintxJune 9, 2012

Wonder if those with a laundry room NOT adjacent to the kitchen have any regrets? I'm thinking about planning my laundry room near the split bedrooms instead of across the house near the kitchen. Advice on this would be appreciated.

I have a friend that built her laundry room in the bedroom area, and she really likes it there. There are 4 bedrooms in that area of the house. (5 kids, farm, and a dog kennel) It's convenient for the family to drop off their dirty laundry there, and it's also convenient for them to pick it up, or for her to deliver it if she is so inclined. :-) There is a closet across the hall that holds linens and some clothing. Her house is a large ranch, and the kitchen is quite a number of steps away from the bedrooms. When she does laundry, it's a multi-hour project and she spends a lot of time in that room.

My laundry room is off the kitchen, and I like my location. I have a smallish ranch house, so it's not that far for the family to bring their laundry out/pick it up. I do a big wash weekly, but I also do smaller loads during the week--so my location suits me just fine.

The only advice I will offer is that you make sure the laundry room is on an outside wall. Optimally, the dryer vent should have a short distance to the outside.
Our laundry room is at the other end of the house from the bedrooms. On the positive side, it helps me walk those 10k steps-a-day that doctors recommend. ;-)

I have a large 2 story home. When we moved in we used the laundry room downstairs, next to the kitchen as the prior owners had. I quickly added another laundry set upstairs. The house was already plumbed for the second story laundry. It drove me crazy to lug the dirty laundry downstairs then back up once it was washed. If you want your laundry room downstairs I would recommend having a room large enough to store the dirty laundry, fold and sort the clean laundry and a way to close it off when you have visitors.

I like a laundry close to where you will be while you're doing the laundry. It would drive me nuts to run up and down stairs to tend to the washer and dryer, or to hike across the house back and forth.

I agree with the person who said position the dryer vent with a short run. And try to be sure it's easily accessible for lint cleaning. Did you read about Robert DeNiro's fire the other day, caused by clogged lint?